


The Fisher Prince

by cheshireArcher



Category: 14th Century CE RPF
Genre: Arthurian legend - Freeform, Chronic Illness, F/M, general sadness, non-graphic unsanitary content, the fisher king
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:41:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23062630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cheshireArcher/pseuds/cheshireArcher
Summary: Joan of Kent takes care of her ailing husband.
Relationships: Edward the Black Prince/Joan of Kent
Comments: 3
Kudos: 5





	The Fisher Prince

**Author's Note:**

  * For [heartofstanding](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartofstanding/gifts).



> CW for mild/non-graphic references to an unsanitary health-related situation.
> 
> I wrote this after a conversation on Tumblr about the Black Prince and interpretations of his sickness by historians, including Walsingham's that might suggest a connection to the myth of the Fisher King.
> 
> Enjoy this misery.

When Richard is little, his mother tells him stories of King Arthur and his knights, of Gawain and Percival and Lancelot. Of the Grail and the Fisher King. Though he has never seen his grandfather, he imagines him to be Arthur in the flesh. Grandfather was a great warrior. So is Richard’s father. Papa is away at the war for months at a time, and Richard rarely sees him even when he’s home. But when Papa is home, he scoops Richard up and makes the lad laugh.

Richard hears his nurse talking to another servant, saying in a low voice that young Prince Richard is even more important now that his brother is–

Richard doesn’t quite understand what happened to Eddie, though mama tells him Eddie can’t come back.

Papa comes home.

When he does, he can’t pick Richard up. He looks tired, Richard thinks. Maybe once he has a nap or too he’ll be rested up, it always works for mama. But when his father goes to bed, he rarely gets up. Mama tells Richard to be quiet, his father needs some peace. She stays with her husband almost all day long, for weeks. Papa is very sick, Richard knows.

Mama tells Richard they are going to return to England, where she and Papa were born. That’s where grandfather is, and Richard’s cousins.

“Will Papa get better when we go there?” Richard asks. “Will England make him better?”

Mama doesn’t know how to respond.

* * *

Once Richard is in bed, Joan returns to sit by her husband. Ned looks worse every day, she thinks. This can’t be happening. Ned isn’t that old– in fact, he’s younger than her– he’s a soldier in his prime, and yet his body is falling apart.

Joan, Countess of Kent and Princess of Wales and of Aquitaine gently cleans the blood away from Ned’s legs and goes to find clean sheets. Every few weeks the bleeding comes back, right when Joan thinks it’s gone.

“You don’t– you shouldn’t do this,” Ned says, quietly. “I have attendants… and the doctor can–”

“Shh,” Joan shushes him and lays a cool hand on his forehead. It’s not hot– at least it isn’t fever. She kisses his brow and goes back to cleaning the unpleasant mess.

“You shouldn’t see me like this,” he attempts, but feebly.

“Ned, I have seen you dirtier than this.”

“When?”

Joan thinks for a moment. “Remember that time when we children and got into a fight and threw mud at each other? And we both ended up falling in the mud?”

Ned laughs for the first time in too long. The laughs turn to coughs but he enjoys it. “My mother was furious,” he recalls. “I thought she was going to banish us both. After we had a bath.”

The current mess is worse than mud, both in the composition and the effort needed to clean it.

Ned can’t decide if this or his embarrassment will kill him first.

And yet Joan cleans him up and finds him fresh clothes for the bed and himself and says nothing.

She’s an angel.

“Richard wouldn’t go to sleep until I told him a story,” she says, sitting beside Ned and holding his hand. “He never will.”

“What story did you tell him?” Ned’s son never fails to make him smile.

“He wanted another story about the Grail.” Only upon saying that does she realize she is in the presence of the Fisher King.


End file.
